Weather helps course for Olympic marathon trials

Updated 9:51 pm, Tuesday, January 10, 2012

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Weather helps course for Olympic marathon trials

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Organizers for Saturday's U.S. Olympic marathon trials arrived Tuesday to find a city and a race course doused by rainfall, cooled by a timely cold front and poised for what organizers describe as ideal conditions for Saturday's stop on the road to the 2012 London Olympics.

Saturday's trials, a prelude to the 40th annual Chevron Houston Marathon on Sunday, will feature an estimated 158 men and 223 women racing for the three spots available in each category for the 2012 Games.

And the weather, in contrast to the miserable conditions that have gripped Houston for months, could scarcely be better.

Monday's deluge gave city streets a thorough scouring, and Tuesday's cold front dropped temperatures into the 50-degree range that organizers say would be ideal for Saturday's start times (8 a.m. for men, 8:15 a.m. for women).

"The course was unaffected by the recent flooding in the area, and we are confident that this course will be well received by both the athletes and the spectators," said Jim Estes, associate director for USA Track & Field. "Right now, the conditions for Saturday look pretty close to ideal. It looks like the athletes will not have to deal with any rain or wind, and with temperatures in the 50s the stage will be set for great performances all around."

Saturday's race marks the first time U.S. men and women marathoners will compete on the same day on the same course with Olympic berths at stake. Accordingly, organizers hope they can drum up a crowd worthy of the event.

"Where else can you watch world-class athletes competing to be on the Olympic team with a free front-row seat?" said Wade Morehead, executive director of the Houston Marathon Committee. "The athletes have been getting their bodies in tune for four years, and now they have to succeed for two hours."

Unfamiliar course

Saturday's trials will take place over a course that may be unfamiliar to fans of the Chevron Houston Marathon, which celebrates its 40th anniversary with Sunday's run, but is well-known to the tens of thousands who attend the city's Fourth of July celebrations in the Buffalo Bayou greenbelt west of downtown.

After runners start from the Discovery Green area near the George R. Brown Convention Center with an initial loop through downtown, the 26.2-mile Olympic trials course will follow an eight-mile loop on either side of the bayou following Memorial Drive to South Shepherd to Allen Parkway.

Runners will travel the loop three times before hitting the finish line at the convention center.

It's a smaller geographic area than the traditional course for Sunday's marathon, which stretches from west of Memorial Park to Rice University before returning to downtown Houston, so organizers don't expect anywhere close to the 200,000 people anticipated to line the course on Sunday.

Still, marathon officials hope to provide an Olympics-like atmosphere for the runners and the event, which will air on a delayed basis at 2 p.m. on NBC (in Houston on KPRC, Channel 2).

"Over 50,000 would be fabulous, and even 20,000 to 30,000 would be fantastic," said Bob Eury, president of the Central Houston nonprofit group that supports downtown development.

Looks like London

Organizers say the long, narrow loop along Memorial, Shepherd and Allen Parkway resembles the London course in shape and elevation, and the course allows viewers to catch a glimpse of the top runners at least twice on each lap.

Race organizers also hope to boost the crowd with the U.S. Olympic Committee's Trials Town, which will be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday and from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at Discovery Green.

"It's not like the Kentucky Derby, where they go by once and, well, that's it," Eury said. "If you want to keep up with what is going on, you can take the bridges over the bayou from side to side."